Trumbull engineer and other entities to apply for facility for washing buses and trucks

Staff report

WARREN

The Trumbull County Engineer’s Office will apply for money through the state’s Local Government Innovation Fund to build a shared facility for washing buses and trucks.

The facility would be a joint project among the county engineer, county commissioners, city of Warren, Howland Township, Howland Local Schools and Warren City Schools.

It would wash two or more buses or trucks at a time and would be located at the county engineer’s office, 650 North River Road.

“Governments and public institutions must implement new and innovative ways to provide services to the public. Maintaining a dependable fleet of trucks, buses and vehicles is critical to the services provided by these entities,” Randy Smith, county engineer said in a news release.

Smith’s office is seeking a $500,000 zero-percent loan, leaving about $300,000 more to be paid by the county engineer’s office. The government bodies that would participate will pay user fees to have their vehicles washed there.

James Pantalone, Howland fire chief, said such a facility would eliminate the need for firefighters to spend several hours each time they have to clean the undercarriage of a fire truck to remove salt.

The facility, which works a lot like a laser car wash, would enable his department to clean the underside of fire trucks and ambulances a greater number of times each winter and prolong the life of those vehicles. That type of washing takes only several minutes, officials said.

Jim Valesky, Warren councilman, said having this facility available will allow operations workers to focus on other tasks besides cleaning garbage trucks and dump trucks, such as those used to plow and salt the roads.

“A lot of times we lose these vehicles because of corrosion of the chassis,” he said.

The county engineer’s office was successful the last two times it applied for grants through the Government Innovation Fund – for a salt dome used by a variety of government bodies and for a feasibility study of converting government vehicles to compressed natural gas.